Psycho Puppy!

[RaisinThePug]

We love almost everything about Raisin. Her potty training is going well, although if you leave her alone in a room for too long she freaks out and will pee on the carpet. But I feel that's more the fault of the person who leaves her alone in a room.

However, she does the grabbing the pant leg thing I've read that all pugs do. But she goes insane about it. She shakes her head viciously and growls like she really means business. It terrifies my nearly 3 year old daughter who spends a good portion of the day sitting on the couch, with her feet up to keep Raisin out of reach.

I tried the coins in a jar thing. It worked for a few days. Telling her no, ignoring her, giving her a "time out" away from people, it does no good. This is just her thing.

The tugging on the pant leg doesn't bother me so much. It's when she won't let go, growls, shakes her head, etc. On more than one occasion she has let go, only to lunge forward again when I take the next step, and take a bite out of my leg.

If we didn't have a young child in the house it wouldn't bother me so much, but one way or another it's behavior that needs to stop.

How do we tackle this one? I've raised a lot of dogs, but never had one that did this all the time.

[shaynapug]

That's one reason I don't sell puppies to people with young kids!

Puppies need to grow out of it.

You can try to distract the pup....and or...use a squirt bottle!

[Zeake]

Daisy goes for my socks. She never hurts me though. Sturn voice and NO! every time she does it will help. I try to use a news paper to swat her with if she gets too bad. Seems though that it is something you should never allow Raisin to do. The newspaper makes more noise than anything and they do not like it.

[RaisinThePug]

Thanks, I'll have to try a squirt bottle. I forgot to put one on my shopping list because I did think of it before. All the ones we have around here have had various chemicals in them so I want a new one that is only for water. She has been (lightly) swatted and it makes no difference. The coins in the jar are a lot louder than a newspaper. But we don't get the newspaper so that's not something we have lying around.

She goes in spurts, but when she gets going very little seems to slow her down. Once she gets it out of her system she's the sweetest thing. I did lots of reading about pugs before she came home, I guess I missed this little trait when I was so focused on the health issues.

[chichiandruby]

Good luck! Chi Chi is 2 and this is still one of her traits. She especially loves to do this just before feeding. I can hardly walk to give her the food. Funny though, my other pug Ruby has never done this. Luck of the draw I guess.

[Liese]

I've found ignoring is the BEST way... She will get bored. My pug Chloé use to do that but I ignored and voila!

[RaisinThePug]

If it was just me and my husband I think I would ignore. But there is no way I can get my daughter to ignore it. Because of the size difference, she will jump up on her and get a hold the backside of her pants and literally pull them down in the process.

I got a squirt bottle last night so we'll give this a try today.

[Wally 'n' Leto]

Wally did this for a while, and what made him stop was a high pitched yelp and then removing ourselves from his presence right away (go in th ebathroom and shut the door). It took about a week, but he finally got the message.

Good luck!

[6 Beautiful Pugs]

He will outgrow it. Thankfully, it's a relatively short stage and happens in most puppies, pug or otherwise. Even a lot of kittens will do it, with claws ad teeth!

Along with the spray bottle for the puppy, you need to teach your daughter not to scream, run or pull away when he does it as that behavior encourages the behavior and makes him think he's got her intimidated, especially when they run away squealing or crying. I know it's hard with a 3 year old, but encourage her to play "statue" or "freeze" when the puppy does this call for you in a calm voice and wait for you to come and handle it.

Puppies and babies or toddlers is a tough mix. They really need to be protected from one another until they are old enough to reliably behave.

Take care,
Lisa

[evfc]

Along with the spray bottle for the puppy, you need to teach your daughter not to scream, run or pull away when he does it as that behavior encourages the behavior and makes him think he's got her intimidated, especially when they run away squealing or crying.

This is what I have taught my son to do when Buddy does that to him. Stop. Don't run or pull the pant leg away. Buddy loves to tug and chase so running away or pulling the pant leg away becomes another game to play. I told my son to stand his ground, tell Buddy "NO" in a firm voice and gently push him away. When Buddy is REALLY excited it is more difficult for my son to stop him so I usually step in at that point, but he is getting much better at dealing with it now. Buddy will usually run off and find something else to do. My son is 7 though so it's a lot easier to teach him that than it would be to teach a 3 year old.